Cat Defeats Professional Wealth Managers In Stock-Picking Contest

In his book 'A Random Walk Through Wall Street,' economist Burton Malkiel famously declared that "a blindfolded monkey throwing darts" would able to pick stocks just as well as the professionals.

His theory has been tested over the years, with mixed results. But new evidence out of England suggests that it is cats, not monkeys, that all money managers should be measured against.

London-based newspaper 'The Observer' devised a challenge in which three professional wealth managers, an elementary school class and a cat named Orlando (not pictured above) were given $8,000 each to invest in the market.

By the end of the year, the wealth managers' stock picks had earned more money than the school children, who actually lost money. They pros were no match, however, for Orlando.

The cat, who made his investment decisions "by throwing his favorite toy mouse on a grid of numbers allocated to different companies" ended up making a little more than $800 for the year. That was three times as much money as the three financial professionals were able to earn combined.

Would you trust your financial future to your cat's feline intuition? As it stands that would be a surer bet than relying on the so-called experts. And you could probably get away with a commission arrangement based on warm bowls of milk.